neetha Napew - The Time Of The Transferance

Mudge rose. “Now you listen to me, you bristle-nosed bitch!”

“Don’t call me names, fuzznuts. I’ve about had it up to here with you and your pimple-brained man-boy. You’re no good as rescuers and you’re no good as anything else. At least this bunch,” and she jerked her head in the direction of the sleeping pirates, “has some guts. Take him, for instance.” She indicated their guard. “You can tell just by looking at him that he’s too smart to get himself iri a fix like this. Males like that, they’ve been around. They know the score, how to take care of themselves.” The beaver made a show of ignoring this verbal by-play, but he consciously tried to suck in his gut and stand a little taller.

“A real male would know how to take advantage of every situation, no matter how delicate, without getting himself in a bucket of trouble. Wouldn’t he?” She batted her lashes at the beaver, who pretended not to notice. She began to twist about on the ground in a seductive manner. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a good lover I’ve damn well forgotten what it’s like.”

The beaver swallowed, watching her movements out of one eye.

“Don’t you think,” Weegee cooed to him, “you and I could slip away for a few minutes and show these bottle-brains what a real male and female can do?” She cut her eyes right. “There’s a couple of nice, thick bushes over there.”

“I—I can’t.” The guard’s lips were twitching. “Sasheem would have my tongue out if I left my post,”

“But you’re not leaving your post. Your job is to keep an eye on us, isn’t it? Those useless neuters are securely tied. So am I for that matter. Why, I wouldn’t be able to keep you from doing just any old thing you might want to do. And you will be keeping an eye on me, won’t you? Along with other things?”

The guard turned, studied Jon-Tom, Mudge and Cautious. “One of them might get loose.”

“Why don’t you tie their necks together?” Weegee suggested brightly. “That way if they try to run off they’ll just choke each other. If they trip and fall two of them will break the third one’s neck—not that that’d be any loss. Besides, we’ll just be a few feet over there.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“What could a little weak thing like me do, all tied up like this?”

The temptation was too much for the guard. Drawing a length of heavy rope from his belt he quickly secured the three males neck to neck, so tightly the hemp burned into Jon-Tom’s skin. Then he lifted Weegee under her arms and dragged her off into the bushes. Mudge rolled over to face Jon-Tom.

“Let’s ‘ave a chat, mate.”

“About what?” Jon-Tom was looking past him into the underbrush where the guard had taken Weegee.

“Anything you want,” the otter said tightly, “but let’s talk.”

So they talked, trying not to listen to the sounds coming from the bushes until Weegee reappeared. She ran bent over and low and though her wrists were still bound behind her, she made short work of their bonds with her sharp teeth. Her clothing was more disheveled than ever.

“How’d you get away from him?” Jon-Tom asked the question because Mudge couldn’t.

“I waited and let him do as he pleased, whispering sweet sillinesses into his ears and moaning and whistling, and when he was about done I kissed him as hard as I could and kicked his nuts up into his throat, that’s how. Then I picked up a rock I’d selected earlier with my feet—he forgot that we otters are very agile with our feet—and I hit him in the head. Many times. Until he stopped moving. I don’t think he’ll move again.”

Cautious was the last to be untied. As Mudge and Jon-Tom were helping him slip free of his bonds, Weegee vanished back among the bushes only to return a moment later with the guard’s knife and spear.

“We’ve got to get our backpacks and stuff.” Jon-Tom rubbed his wrists where the rope had cut into them. “We’ve at least got to get the sack my duar’s in.”

“How much is me life worth to you, mate?”

“Mudge, you know I can’t leave that behind.”

“Some’ow I knew you’d say somethin’ like that.” The otter sighed. “Wait over there.” He pointed toward a clump of small trees. Not the bushes where Weegee had been dragged.

They did as he bid, waiting for what seemed like an hour but was only a few minutes. Jon-Tom was about to suggest going after him when he reappeared, moving silently through the darkness, his own pack on his back and Jon-Tom’s trailing along behind him. Jon-Tom winced every time the sack containing the pieces of duar bounced off the ground.

“Couldn’t you have been a little more careful with that?” He grabbed the backpack’s straps and swung it onto his shoulders.

“Do tell? You ought to be grateful I risked me life to sneak back for that lousy sack o’ kindlin’.”

“I am, because you’re the only one I know who could have done it.”

“Oh, well, since you put it that way. I expect I am. Anyone else would ‘ave woken the lot of them.”

At about that time a shout rose from the pirate encampment, followed by a couple of sleepy queries.

“Would have, eh?” Weegee smacked him across the snout. Mudge slapped her back and Jon-Tom and Cautious had to forcibly separate the two lovers.

“Ain’t got time for this, you bet,” Cautious chided them. Jon-Tom was trying to peer into the woods as the alarm spread slowly through the brigands’ camp.

“Which way? Toward the beach?”

“I doen know the beach. I know the woods.” The raccoon pointed southward. “We go that way.”

At first the cries and shouts of the pirates faded behind them, but soon they gained in strength.

“Following for sure.” Mudge scampered alongside Jon-Tom. “I ‘ave this uncomfortable feelin’ they won’t be so quick to give up on us this time. We’ve embarrassed ‘em once too often.”

“I agree.” Jon-Tom ducked a low-hanging branch, felt the wood scrape the top of his scalp. “I’m afraid Sasheem will prevail.”

“They won’t take us alive.” Weegee kicked a bush aside. “Think we can outrun “em?”

“I don’t know.” He glanced skyward worriedly. “I wonder if Kamaulk’s wing is healed enough for him to fly. I didn’t notice any other avians in the crew.”

“Lucky break.” Mudge leaped a rivulet. “Be ‘ard put to spot us at night through these trees anyway.”

At times the pirate’s cries would drift away, only to return stronger than ever as one of their number picked up the tracks of the escapees. Once they splashed down a shallow stream and temporarily lost their pursuers completely, only to have them eventually pick up the trail yet again. Cautious tried every trick he knew, but the pirates persisted. This time they wouldn’t tuck their tails between their legs and give up. And if they couldn’t shake them at night, Jon-Tom knew, they’d have twice the trouble losing them in the daytime.

He was tired already. His heart pounded against his ribs and his legs felt like silly putty. Even Mudge and Weegee were showing signs of exhaustion. Not even an otter can run forever.

Suddenly Jon-Tom stopped, nearly stumbling. Mudge crashed into him from behind and wheezed angrily up at his friend.

“Wot’s the matter with you, mate? Come on, we’ve got to keep movin’.”

“Hold on a minute.”

“We ain’t got many minutes.”

Jon-Tom ignored this as he moved curiously to his left. Mudge looked back into the woods, then at his companion.

“Are you daft, lad? Wot is it you’re ‘untin’ for?”

“Don’t you feel it?”

“Feel wot?”

“Something our friends are likely to overlook.” He was pushing leaves and branches aside now, let out an exclamation of satisfaction when he found what he was looking for.